How to prevent terrorists from using weapons of mass destruction

About the Authors

Seven years after 9/11, we were en route to Pakistan when a
bomb blast destroyed the Marriott Hotel there. We were hours from
staying at that very hotel. Our near miss provided a clear and
sobering reminder that we live in a very perilous time.

More than 50 people died in that attack. If a weapon of mass
destruction had been used, the death toll would have been
exponentially higher. We state the problem clearly in the report we
issued this month, the result of six months of research and
analysis by the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass
Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism.

Our margin of safety is shrinking, not growing. In fact, on the
current trajectory, we believe it is more likely than not that a
weapon of mass destruction - probably biological rather than
nuclear - will be used somewhere in the world by the end of
2013.

We don't have to remind New Yorkers that the city is a prime
target.

Our report puts forward recommendations that can help reduce
that threat. During the course of our work, we learned from Mayor
Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly that New York leads
the rest of the country in its preparation for the unthinkable. But
President-elect Barack Obama and Congress can and must do more,
much more:

Focus on bioterrorism. We must raise the priority of the most
likely form of attack - bioterrorism - by mobilizing the life
sciences community to develop protocols that prevent misuse of
scientific research; tightening oversight of our high-containment
laboratories and the security of those around the world; improving
our response time in the event of an attack and educating the
American people in order to prevent panic. And we must lead the
international community in the development of an action plan for
universal adherence to and compliance with the anemic 36-year-old
Biological Weapons Convention.

Revamp our policy toward Pakistan. Our most senior intelligence
officials continue to warn that the next terrorist attack on the
United States or an ally is likely to originate from Pakistan. Our
government must step up its efforts to remove terrorist safe
havens, secure nuclear and biological materials in Pakistan,
counter and defeat extremist ideology and constrain the budding
nuclear-arms race in Asia.

Reinvigorate the nuclear nonproliferation agenda. North Korea
has tested a nuclear weapon, and Iran has been rapidly developing
capabilities that will enable it to build nuclear weapons. We must
be resolute in our intention to stop these dangerous programs,
strengthening the International Atomic Energy Agency with more
authority and resources, while continuing vigorous efforts to stop
nuclear trafficking.

What damage could a nuclear attack do to New York? Graham
Allison, director of the Belfer Center for Science and
International Affairs at Harvard University and a WMD commissioner,
outlines this scenario in his book "Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate
Preventable Catastrophe":

"Al Qaeda rents a van, drives a Russian 10-kiloton nuclear bomb
into Times Square, and detonates it. Times Square disappears
instantly, as the heat from the blast would reach tens of millions
of degrees Fahrenheit. The Theater District, Grand Central
Terminal, Rockefeller Center, Carnegie Hall and the Empire State
Building would be gone, literally in a flash. ... Half a million
people who at noontime are in that half-mile radius of the blast
site would be killed. Hundreds of thousands of others would die
from collapsing buildings, fire and fallout."

Like this scenario, our report does not sugarcoat the threat.
The world is at risk. But we are not helpless. Our recommendations,
if promptly and decisively adopted, can increase the margin of
safety for New York, America and the world.

Graham, a former governor and U.S. senator from Florida, is
chairman of the congressionally established Commission on the
Prevention of WMD Proliferation and Terrorism. Talent, a former
U.S. senator from Missouri, is vice chairman of the commission and
distinguished fellow at the Heritage Foundation.